Sprung

So here we are again, we can put our snowshoes back in the loft and start looking to warmer days and earlier starts. Yes it is that time of year when colour and warmth starts to return to the landscape, the time when we can start to head out without our sub-zero gloves and thermal layers. The life-giving spring is back in town.

If you are slightly cynical about the joys of spring, I can understand this. It is the time of year when photography forums and stock libraries tend to become overrun with certain white then blue flowers and marauding hordes of photographers twitch round the country to catch the next batch of blooms. We then lie shoulder to shoulder in lines of 10 – 20 waiting for the exact viewpoint that another photographer has just taken. Is there really any point in this? Is there another way? Surely, we have all seen enough bluebell photos by now haven’t we? Surely, there cannot be any new ways to look at bluebells left?

Well luckily, yes there are and hopefully in the course of this piece I will be able to convince you of that and pass on the joys of spring to some of the more cynical amongst us.

There are many great things about woodland landscapes and some interesting challenges too. Let’s start with pace. It can be a far more relaxed pursuit that other forms of landscape photography. Woodland sessions need not be in the wee small hours. Lovely images of woodland areas can be captured on comfortable, sunny Sunday afternoons as the dappled diffused sunlight drifts through the trees on to the forest floor.

This image of a birch among the bluebells is what I would term a quiet landscape shot and tells the story of British woodland and continuance with the young and old tree. I included this here to illustrate how your shooting can be flexible with bluebells. This handheld shot was taken while on a family walk with a camera. This as many who have tried it will tell you, is not generally the atmosphere conducive to productive landscape photography but for me it captures some of the understated and gentle beauty we associate with the UK and bluebell woodland.

After pace, there is availability. We are very lucky as we have an abundance of woodland here in the UK, so save the planet and shoot local. I like to spend time getting to know the local areas before the bluebells bloom and then keep an eye on their progress and that of the trees in the area too. For me, the condition of the trees is as important to the image as the flowers. To create the overall impression of the vibrant spring scene you need all elements to be working harmoniously so a collection of dead twigs with a few half-dead flowers at the base is not going to cut the mustard.

If you do keep your eye out for these local spots you will often find locations that are not yet on the photographer honey-pot trail. In fact, I personally have never actually encountered another photographer while out shooting bluebells, which is just the way I like it. One other tip is that organisations like the National Trust now have specific site listings on their website for bluebells. This is due to the growing popularity of bluebells & snowdrops among the population as a whole. If you use these as starting points then even the reccies can be fun. My family and I benefit from many daytime walks and picnics round this time of year, with half an eye on location scouting as well as providing lovely spring backgrounds for portrait shoots. Just remember to take your sun compass with you … and not actually mentioning that you are going on a location-scouting trip might also be deemed sensible, but I could not comment on that.

Finally, as if you would need any more convincing, time and convenience is another great perk of spring shooting. This might have particular relevance for those used to shooting winter sea & landscapes. Now in spring we can leave our wellies at home and not worry about venturing out in to the freezing surf or fog for boot-filling moments of soggy madness in the half-light of the fading sun or wading through the snow for hours to grab the shot we planned out in our heads. Instead we can stroll through mellow woodland, with bunnies skipping through the forest as the warming rays of the sun lift the mist from the forest floor and everything seems right with the world. You could even put the case that it is better than summer shooting as sunset is at such a gentlemanly hour as to allow us to enjoy the post-shoot glass of our choice while reflecting on the earlier witnessed glories of nature, even with Sunday closing times. This is of course if the inclination takes you that way and I believe from my participation on photography forums that there might be one or two photographers out there who do occasionally indulge in such constructive and reflective post-shoot analysis.

The drawbacks or perhaps the attraction of these little beauties is that they are only here for a short time each year but the good news is that this should be enough to allow you to make a few trips. There are some general principles to shooting bluebells and some key points to help you get the shots you want but as with all photography, the best results through experimentation not following someone else’s recipe.

So what steps can we take to guarantee successful trips?

First of all, the general ‘rules’ of image composition still apply. If you are new to these try googling: ‘leading lines’, ‘rule of thirds’, ‘golden section’ or even ‘photography composition’ and you will find a few pointers. These should keep you busy for a little while. However, I will attempt to keep this piece specific to bluebell photography so for me the guidelines that ring truest for these scenes are:

Sky – Less is more. Bluebells are generally found in woodland so to help convey the feeling of being alone in a field bluebell bliss to your viewers you will want to look for scenes that exclude the sky as much as possible. Naturally, the eye is drawn to the brightest part of a scene and bright sky showing through patchy trees will draw the attention away from the focal point of the scene and therefore the story that you are trying to convey, unless it is key to the story of course.

Foliage – This is the same message as the sky here, only inverted. Look for good tree cover but it does, of course, have to be the right tree cover. Patchy old twigs or nettles do not generally present an image that viewers want to fall in to. There are numerous way to go here but find woodland where the tree cover works with the bluebells. This should not generally be too hard but the key point is: good tree cover and trees sprouting fresh leaves at the same time as the bluebells flowering.

Light – I did mention earlier that the light could be varied. It can. My main tips here are really just to experiment. Try dawn shoots, try sunset shoots, try sunny day shoots and even overcast shoots. Play round with your settings and just try to tell the story that presents itself to you on your visit. My favourite time is still sunrise and sunset but the best advice is to go whenever you can, take your time and make the best of what presents itself to you.

Kit choice – so this is an interesting one and might prove controversial with some landscapers. Often for landscape shoots the wide-angle lens is our best friend. It was creating drama and super reality long before HDR entered the kit bag because it can fit in more than we could actually see with our own eyes. However, for me the wide-angle lens can generally stay in the kit bag for these bluebell shoots (obviously you can not actually leave your baby at home, because well – you never know do you?). For bluebell shots though, a longer lens will focus on the middle distance ground and therefore the bluebell heads. A wide-angled lens will give you more of an image of bluebell stems, which are (in case you didn’t know already) green. Sure there are different styles of image and do please experiment but to create the image of being lost in the woodland then the longer lens is the way to go to give that ‘sea of blue’ feeling. Another key of course is that trees, much like most buildings are generally upright. To make sure that they stay this way you will need to keep you lens levelled on all axes. You can get away with being slightly off level but lean too far forward and the trees will lean in to the centre and lean back and the trees will lean out.

So after we have the scene selected and the time out booked we need to set up our shot and we are back to the holy trinity of Aperture, Shutter speed & ISO. Now for many landscapes, particularly those we are likely to have been shooting over the winter months the recipe will be:

1) Set Aperture to optimum to give maximum depth of field for your given kit
2) Set ISO to best possible quality
3) Let the shutter speed do as it will (or slow it down to give more movement to certain elements)

However for bluebell landscapes we need to shift our mindset a little depending on the image that we are making. So firstly we need to ask ourselves about the story we wish to tell. If you wish to shoot a clear bluebell shot with well-defined flowers then you will need to think along the following lines:

1) Determine what shutter speed you need to freeze any movement in the bluebells. This will vary depending on the breeze. Still days make things easier.
2) Consider what aperture will give acceptable depth of field with your set up
3) Consider what ISO your calculations (or camera) says you need then adjust the settings or shot so that these last 2 are within acceptable ranges to give you the image you want. Luckily modern DSLRs and software are pretty good at handling noise in higher ISO shots.

Shot Style – Of course the above recipe will give you sharp images with clear flowers and decent depth but another benefit of springtime shooting is that you are not restricted by light as much as some other times of year. This of course means that you can take your time and frolic in the forest and play around with different settings, just like the joyful springtime woodland sprites even the cynical amongst us are now, no doubt, turning into. Try using longer exposures to capture deliberate movement in the trees and flowers. Try camera movement to colourful abstracts and of course don’t forget to ‘Look behind you’. There is plenty of opportunity for catching dawn views of sun’s rays through the morning mist or wistfully moving trees in their new spring clothing.

Hopefully, if you follow these guidelines you will soon be feeling the big-bluebell-brotherly-love and filling up your hard drives with the results of successful shoots galore. So go forth my brothers and sisters and bluebell up your life!